My concern trollish ways got the better of me. In my previous post, on Mélenchon as a pedagogue, I expressed worry that he was serving to bring workers over from the Front national to the Front de gauche only to later have troops available to follow Mélenchon into pushing for a Hollande victory over Sarkozy [...]
This early February speech, by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the presidential candidate for the Front de gauche, a left-wing coalition in France, has been helpfully subtitled in English: Jean-Luc Mélenchon Discours de Villeurbanne Eng… par kominaaa Jean-Luc Mélenchon Discours de Villeurbanne Eng… par kominaaa If you only have time for one part of the speech, I recommend [...]
Everyone in the US knows that the more removed an election is from a presidential election, with emergency special elections inhabiting the limit point away, the more turnout will be depressed. Furthermore, everyone in the US knows, since the Christian Coalition rode this pony into power, that the lower turnout is, the fewer votes you [...]
Here are a few things that I’ve read about since I wrote my generalized description of the regional elections in France last night: I wondered about the 53% rate of abstention (47% turnout) in comparison to previous elections. Turns out it’s pretty bad. The rate has been climbing over the past 25 years, though, 1998 [...]
Tonight the polls closed on the first round of the sexennial elections for the 22 regional councils in France.1 In comparison to the US, the regional councils are sort of like state governments, and their primary dossiers involve education, transportation, and land use. Rue89 has conveniently put together a “Regional Elections for Dummies” page, but, [...]
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